In celebration of today, i taught my dog a new trick. I say “brainsssssss” and he sticks his paws out in front of him. Good zombie puppy!
Today was Easter?
There. That’s an appropriate atheist rant. You’re welcome.
Quoted, as they say, for truth.
Which is interesting, don’t you think.
Today is Sunday, April 24, 2011? Tomorrow is Monday, April 25, 2011?
There. That’s an appropriate nihilist rant. You’re not welcome.
Not really. If you or anyone else thinks I got it from a movie, it only shows your frame of reference is limited to pop culture.
What’ll happen if you discover the banner that offended you happened to be on private property? In my area, there are two private overpasses visible from my office window & I’m only on the 2nd floor.
Gentile? And you’re going on about Finn. 
Yes and no. I think it’s more than a little silly to strongly (or even moderately) oppose something like that. I don’t see a religious banner being much different from the American flags that festooned virtually every overpass in NY in 2001 or “Jimmy and Suzie 4 evar!” banners, or what have you. But okay, I can understand that someone may object to an unauthorized banner…
The response, though, is assholeish. And to use the pretense of a banner to pick a fight with Christians on Easter is in more than a little bad taste.
And I can see the whole totem-and-taboo/staring-into-the-abyss dynamic where someone who was religious uses the same set of tactics in objecting to religious people’s behavior, but that still doesn’t make it much more palatable. As for who would rate more point on the Assholeometer, eh… I can’t really get behind that sort of equivalence. I have, for example, pretty regularly been visited by missionaries over the last few years, and they’ve been rather polite (the last ones, actually, even after I told them that I had no interest in their religious views, made a point of asking if there was any other way in which they could help me.) I think that’s fairly equivalent to a banner saying “Yay, Easter!!!”
But if I responded “Fuck off you Mormon bastards!” well, then I’d be the asshole, not them.
I would never have noticed the approach of Easter but for the fact that Cadbury Creme Eggs have been available in supermarkets for the past couple of weeks.
I also probably wouldn’t have realized that today was Easter Sunday if the guy at the store hadn’t asked me how my Easter was going.
Gee I dunno. I can relate to a certain degree of contempt for a religious group (evangelicals), but I suppose in my case I have quite a few personal grievances to cite, so maybe that mitigates things.
OTOH, I don’t like the idea of randomly pissing on things. Say you’re homeless. Say you’re drunk too- you gotta take a piss. Ok. You could wander into a parking lot and piss on a dumpster, except that if you thought about it at all, you’d realize that the dumpster is some kind of piece of equipment, and that other people are going to have to deal with it. They will have to come into contact with your piss- unpleasant! 
Or you could piss on a tree. Yah sure someone might still smell it or even sit in it, but that’s no longer guaranteed and hey, at least you tried. See what I mean?
Easter itself means well, misguided or not. It’s a positive holiday and not out to get anybody. Unless its say Spain in a certain century, but never mind that.
My gf today said to a few people, “Happy zombie Jesus day!”. That made me a little uncomfortable, but I didn’t say anything, and it was at least part funny too. Heck, I raved about Wagner to a Jew after Easter dinner, either forgetting that he was Jewish or else believing the music by itself is religion-neutral and therefore fair game for appreciation. The host pointed out that Wagner died a full 25 years before the Nazis, seeming to defend me while actually perpetuating debate, when I really didn’t want to point out this guy’s Jewishness at all :smack:
I don’t see how.
Yeah, okay - I can agree with that. But then again, someone who was interested in expressing their arguments in a calm and rational manner would probably have posted in GD or IMHO and not the pit!
Well, it’s not the lack of calm-and-rational that I’m responding to. “Those bastards and their banners, it’s like littering plus graffiti and I hate them!” is one thing. “Those bastards and their religious views, and a bunch of you here probably share those religious views, and you’re stupid people. I hate you! Also, as this is one of your more important holy days, you should know that you’re idiots for commemorating it.” is another.
I got no less than 11 Happy Easter Christ is Risen texts today. It’s not that I’m morally opposed to Jesus, it’s just that I’m morally opposed to pretty much all the things people do in his name like attempt to deny me human rights, control women via reproductive choices and squelch scientific thought like a flea at a picnic. Added to the fact that I was dragged to mass this morning to make my mother happy despite successfully avoiding services for Thursday, Friday, or Saturday means that I pretty much couldn’t care less if the OP offends you. Christianity is dumb and if you believe in it, you’re dumb. Not that you’d realize this because if you did, you wouldn’t be a christian. (Tomorrow, I will be more tolerant. Probably.)
Given the furor over the bus signs saying “There’s probably no god” in Britain, I would not be surprised if a lynch mob formed for hanging a sign saying god is dead on easter.
edit: I say christian but I really mean any religious philosophy that relies on faith.
Those things all suck, but of course they don’t typify all religious folks let alone all Christians. It’d be pretty stupid to broadbrush religion to the point where the Westboro Baptist bunch are mixed in with Martin Luther King Jr. just because they’re both religious.
I’m not a Christian and never will be, but that’s still silly. There are plenty of smart people who are Christians, and Christianity has motivated some people to do truly amazing, praiseworthy things. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater isn’t the brightest thing to do, especially in the service of fighting stupidity.
You apparently read a different GD than I do.
You sound depressed, Lobohan. I guess you agree with Woody Allen: “Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on a [Easter] Sunday.”
By taking the “some people think” route. The kids don’t care. they get presents regardless.
As you say, you don’t spend much time around children.
That, admittedly neat explanation works if you start from a question about where the world comes from. In my case it came from a discussion on the name of a bridge and segued into the motivations of monks. it is more difficult to follow a consistent line of reasoning that satisfies the child without making you think “this sounds absolutely ridiculous”
You reveal a lot of your own worldview with this post, religious or not. You are assuming that I don’t teach my children empathy or imagination.
Do you automatically associate that with atheists?
Anyhow. I have no lessons to learn from you regarding the raising of children. You have proved that your are unable to read and understand what a person has written rather than what you think they have written. You are also ascribing the most negative qualities to people who simply disagree with you. Not a good example.
Well said.
Well, there you go. "Some people think… " That’s what other people have been telling you to say.